Topkey began as a managed marketplace connecting homeowners with vetted property managers. As Co-Founder and Head of Product, I led product development, MVP creation, and strategic growth efforts to address a fragmented market where homeowners struggled to find reliable property managers, and managers faced challenges sourcing new clients. After gaining early traction, we were accepted into Y Combinator, where we refined our strategy, raised a seed round, and ultimately pivoted to a fintech solution for property managers.
The Challenge
Finding a property manager is a significant challenge. Homeowners face major hurdles in locating qualified property managers, with no standardized vetting process and fragmented service offerings across over 290,000 providers in the U.S. Similarly, property managers struggle to find quality leads, often relying on inefficient methods like cold calls or word-of-mouth referrals.
The Solution
We developed a managed marketplace MVP that balanced the needs of homeowners and property managers while validating key elements of the business model:
For Homeowners:A digital concierge simplified the property manager hiring process with comparison tools, scheduling support, and service reviews.
For Property Managers:Tools for lead qualification and funnel optimization reduced overhead and improved conversions.
Here's the very first demo video of the product experience that we used for the YC interview. We were still learning, please excuse the gross contrast ratio issues.🤦
Execution Highlights
Conducted 100+ interviews to identify pain points and validate the concept.
Moved to Florida to build our first market and onboarded dozens of property managers.
Tested content SEO, programmatic SEO, digital and physical ads, mail campaigns, and many other marketing channels to bring homeowners into the funnel.
Made initial connections between property managers and homeowners.
Built the product MVP, which included a marketing website, property manager profiles, and a comparison engine.
Accepted into Y Combinator (Summer 2021), where we gained mentorship, refined our go-to-market strategy, and developed a clear roadmap for scaling.
Raised a seed round, leveraging early traction and Y Combinator validation to secure funding and support company growth.
Pivot to Fintech
The dual-sided nature of the marketplace posed significant challenges:
Supply-Side Issues: Convincing property managers to engage required extensive outreach and value demonstration.
We shifted focus to find a related business that could serve either homeowners or property managers to streamline operations and target a larger TAM. We tested and ran multiple SaaS, services, and fintech ideas before ultimately pivoting to financial tools to address supplier-specific pain points, reducing the complexity of dual-sided acquisition.
Learnings
Build something people want: One of the core YC mantras. TAM constraints ultimately made this a tough business to scale with VC funding. However, if we did one thing right, it was listening to our customers and finding a viable problem worth solving. The space continues to be fragmented and outdated, with a persistent need for a viable solution.
Marketplaces are complex: Running a two-sided marketplace is like managing two businesses at once. Both demand and supply acquisition are resource-heavy, requiring significant capital and high-touch engagement.
Focus drives efficiency: Narrowing our focus to property management suppliers streamlined operations, lowered acquisition costs, and accelerated scalability.
Finding customers is hard: Finding your first 100 customers is one of the hardest parts of building a business. Focus on solving this problem before worrying about others.
Know when to pivot: Pivoting to a fintech solution unlocked a larger TAM and positioned us in a more scalable, sustainable market.
Conclusion
Today, Topkey is still doing well and has been operating at a high level as a fintech platform. The experience reinforced my passion for building products that users love. However, in an early-stage startup, founder attention is often required in many places outside of product development. After a couple of years, I decided to step away from the company and become an advisor so that I could focus on product development full-time.
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